WHAT MAKES SPUD STAND OUT FROM OTHER GROCERY STORES?

At SPUD, we take our food seriously. We want to make sure that our children’s grandchildren live in a pretty awesome world. This means we think about how our decisions affect the earth and our community, and we think about the effects of the food that we bring to your table.

Our mission is to build great relationships with amazing farmers, ranchers, fishers, bakers, and artisans to make it easy for you to have the freshest ingredients and amazing products delivered directly to your home or office.

We believe in partnering with local producers and farmers who you can trust: people who have integrity, who respect our environment, who care about our community, who value sustainable farming practices and believe in the humane treatment of animals.

We wanted to show you the things that we do at SPUD, and the environmental impact of—not just shopping online—but grocery shopping online at SPUD compared to traditional grocery stores.

How does SPUD compare to traditional grocery stores?

TIME + COST

Grocery shopping online saves you time and money. The average shopping session at SPUD ranges anywhere from seven to nine minutes, whereas a trip at your traditional brick-and-mortar store averages at 44 minutes, and that’s not even including the additional 13 minutes of travel time—most of that by car!

Given that we made 350000 deliveries in 2016, you collectively saved 210000 hours of shopping. That’s almost a quarter of a century!

And it’s true. Impulse purchases when grocery shopping is much too real. Studies have shown that grocery stores are set up in a way to get you to buy more than you intend. Do you always see sale flyers right at the entrance of the store? Ever noticed how the bakery section is usually near the front so you can get a good waft of that freshly baked dough?

And logistically, it’s pretty unnecessary to have staples such as milk and eggs tucked in the corner of the store behind all the canned goods. Looking for fresh meat and seafood? Don’t even think about getting there without walking past the junk food and snacks.

The distractive layout really does seem to work, as the average order size at SPUD is $83.68, whereas a weekly stock-up at a traditional grocery store is $134.83. We’re not saying the discrepancy is entirely due to the layout, but how many times have you impulsively picked up an extra bag of chips on the way to the checkout line?

DISTANCE

We all know that transporting food is a huge cause of carbon emissions. Because SPUD believes in partnering with local vendors and farmers, the distance our food travels is much lower compared to the traditional grocery stores in Canada, which averages at 3042 km per food item travelled.

Average of food mileage at SPUD is almost half the national average!

Vancouver: 1657.45 km

Victoria: 1501.51 km

Calgary: 1790.93 km

Edmonton: 1761.62 km

Not to mention that many people make their grocery trips by car, which further adds to carbon emissions. With SPUD, one truck delivers 50 to 70 bins per trip depending on the area of delivery–that’s a lot of cars off the road!

PLASTIC

Let’s be really honest. Plastic sucks. Every piece of plastic that’s been created still exists today. And a lot of that plastic comes from plastic bags, which is why SPUD uses reusable boxes and bins in order to reduce waste. An average order uses two bins to transport your groceries. And one bin of grocery equates to about four plastic bags. This means that you helped save 2.8 million plastic bags in just one year. Pretty remarkable.

And while SPUD does use plastic bags for certain bagged produce items, the plastic bags that we use are oxo-degradable–they break down when exposed to sunlight and oxygen. Because composting them won’t break down the plastic, we pay for soft plastic recycling and take them back to properly dispose of them for you, so make sure you put them back in the bin! And of course, our paper bags are made from recycled material.

SPUD is a certified B corporation, a new kind of company that uses the company of business to solve social and environmental problems. Being sustainable, supporting localism, choosing organic, and reducing food waste are foundational principles at SPUD. And we take a lot of pride in supporting local vendors and farmers we trust to bring you quality food, reduce waste, and be sustainable.